Alternating personal, Mercedes, and Business Platinum cards [USA].

Is it possible to get both the Mercedes Benz platinum card and the normal Amex platinum card consecutively and get the bonus points each time ?
My Mercedes card renews in March so I am thinking about cancelling it then, and immediately applying for the normal card.

Yes, they are separate products.

I'm wondering if anyone knows the real story on churning Amex cards for bonuses.

The T&C say something like you are not eligible for the bonus if you have had this card in the last year, or any Amex (personal/business) product in the last 90 days. That wording is cryptic, because if you "had" say, an Amex PRG in the last year, you would by definition have "had" an Amex personal card in the last 90 days. Some have interpreted "had" to mean "applied for."

I recently applied for a Plat card and was denied the bonus because I had a plat card in the past. I think I might have cancelled it less than a year ago. I didn't fight them over it.

Right now I have a Plat and a PRG (which I have had for several years). I just cancelled Mrs. Redtop's Plat, and she has a gold biz card which she got last September.

My long-run goal is:

a) We should each have at least one MR card open at any time to make sure we don't lose our MR points.
b) I always want to have a Plat card because I am traveling a lot. Having a Plat card for Mrs. Redtop would be a "nice-to-have."
c) Prefer to churn the Plat card to get the $200 airline credit in both years.
d) Want to get as many bonuses as possible. Would like to jump on any extra bonus offers for the gold biz card. I did have one of these, but I forget just when I cancelled it. It was probably about a year ago.

I don't really need any special category earnings. I'm working offshore now so I will buy gas somewhat rarely, I would not use the PRG for groceries here because of the forex fee, and I am buying my plane tickets with my Chase CSP to get the 2x on travel and 2x Ultimate Rewards mall.

Can someone suggest a good strategy?

It may sound cryptic, but I don't believe your applying for the card would qualify as "having had" it. I believe they actually changed their policy language sometime last year to a more liberal 12 months term because I remember I was able to apply for Starwood again after 1 year hiatus. However, if you canceled the card somewhere within the last 12 months, you're probably out of luck, and I don't think fighting it would change anything.

Now, if you want to keep Plat just in order not to lose the points, I think paying $450 a year for the prvilege is a terrible idea. Why not transfer your points to another program or just get a free Amex card like Blue to carry your points over? I mean if you want to "churn" the card you have to close it for at least a year, right? Or if you don't mind the fee, why not close Plat and open Plat MB that at least would get you another 50,000 points for just a slightly higher AF? Then, next year you could cancel Plat MB and apply for the regular Plat that will hopefully get at least 50K bonus by that time. Just a thought.

You can get a no fee "Blue from American Express" card that earns Membership Reward Express points. You won't be able to transfer into travel partners from it, but it is a nice way of keeping your MR points from other cards alive. Once you get another platinum or gold card, the points in your Blue card will be automatically changed to ones that you can transfer.

I think the wording is unambiguous. If you had a personal charge card open at any time in the last 90 days you are not eligible for a new account bonus on any personal charge card, and you are not eligible for the same card if it was open any time in the last year. Likewise if you had a Business charge card open at any time in the last 90 days you are not eligible for a new account bonus on any Business charge card, etc.

It is American Express' implementation which as been inconsistent. Early reports were that American Express looked only to see if an account had been opened in the past 90 days and did not care if an older account was still open. Recent reports are that American Express is often, but not always, enforcing the policy as written.

Fortunately, there is no need to guess. There are three Platinum cards:

• Personal
• Mercedes
• Business

...which can be rotated with zero conflict with each other. The Mercedes version does not conflict with any Gold card.

Good point about the Blue card. My wife and I could both get one, and then we wouldn't have to worry about having a card open.

I want to have a Plat card. However it might make sense to churn it in the sense that one year I have it, the next year my wife does, etc. If she gets it then I have to pay $175 for a supplemental card, but (a) we get the double airline fee credit and (b) we get the signup bonus.

Definitely correct, I have actually had all 3 at the same time and got all bonuses/GC reimbursements. Zero conflict is accurate.

Is the plat biz card a different product also?

Yes it is.

You can do this and I have done it. I have the MB version now.

Overlapping threads have been combined, and the title has been edited.

I thought about doing the same thing, switching from the MB Platinum to the regular Platinum when my card came up for renewal last fall. Amex offered me 50k MR points though to keep the MB Platinum open so I figured I would just stay on this card for another year.

One thing to keep in mind though is your "spending ability". If you close one account and open a new one, as long as there is some overlap, I assume your spending ability will transfer to the new card but does anyone know for sure?

My current "spending ability" took almost almost a year to earn. I would hate to lose that.

If
I canceled my personal amex plat card in 2011
and cancelled my MB plat on JAN 15 2012
and have not had a green card ,zync or gold card in the last 12 months

Can I --- NOW apply for the MB card get bonus and after points post in about 6-8 weeks or so apply for the Plat personal card and get 2nd bonus

OR ---safer and better-- apply for Plat personal and after points post then apply for MB

AS MB t/c ----less restrictive?---"Welcome bonus offer not available to applicants who have had this product within the last 12 months"

any chance they will say MB and Personal Plat SAME FAMILY/ PRODUCT ???

Is the Mercedes not a personal charge card? If they are enforcing the policy as written now, then it looks like I need to cancel my regular Plat today and then wait 90 days before applying for the MB...